Hello,
imSKR. Since you have so many questions, I will respond in-line below:
imSKR wrote:
Quote:
Unlike the lives of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoi, and Dostoevski, subjects of other Troyat biographies, Chekhov belongs to the twentieth century, an age of fretfulness and melancholy skepticism.
Hi
AndrewN sir,
I am far behind reaching at correct answer in this one as I faced multiple questions while solving this SC. I really need your help here in listed 5 questions below.
Quote:
(B) Chekhov, unlike the other Troyat biographies of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoi, and Dostoevski, belongs
Question1:Can not Chekhov be biography? In this case Chekhov vs biography – seems right.
What if Chekhov is really biography then would this sentence structure be ok?
Chekhov can be the
subject of a biography, but the person and the book are not one and the same. If the title of the work were
Chekhov, it would need to be italicized or underlined, and to my knowledge, such a fine grammatical point goes beyond the scope of what is tested on the GMAT™. So to answer your second question here, yes, the following sentence would be fine:
Chekhov, unlike the other Troyat biographies of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoi, and Dostoevski, belongs...
imSKR wrote:
Quote:
(C) The life of Chekhov, unlike the lives of the subjects of other Troyat biographies, Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoi, and Dostoevski, belongs
Question2:Life vs lives :
I was in impression that Noun, unlike Plural noun is not ok.
It means with like and unlike : singular can be compared with plural? No exceptions here?
Any comments?
Evidently, your understanding of this type of comparison is incorrect. You have to let context guide you to a correct assessment. Yes, this is a life-to-life comparison, even if it falls into a grey area. It would be awkward and incorrect to say,
the life of the subjects and go on to name four other people, unless those four (nonsensically) shared the same life. It is okay to place an answer choice on hold if you are unsure of something, but you should not be too quick to eliminate.
imSKR wrote:
Quote:
(D) Chekhov and his life, unlike that of the other Troyat biographies--- Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoi, and Dostoevski, belong
Question3: Why can’t the structure be: Checkhov and [his life vs life of other] belong( Chekov + his life) to xx
Both can belong to 20th century, right? [Both : Life and biography or both: life and subject]
Questio3b: If multiple subjects and multiple objects with them. E.g.: Boys have toys.
Can I infer that each boy has toy? What if a boy has toys? What I want to ask is : in such cases, we assume each has one element or it can be multiple depending on context( toys can be multiple; but life can be one . We only know Multiple boys in total have multiple toys in total. That’s all )
In question 3),
that of is a stand-in for
the life of, and we just discussed how that comparison cannot be made when A is being compared to a B that has four internal subjects, not to mention that this comparison is actually between
Chekhov and his life, A, and B,
[the life] of the other Troyat biographies. A life should not be directly compared with a biography. This one is a mess.
In your sample sentence, you would be able to infer that
in general, a boy will possess at least one toy. Whether one boy had multiple toys or another boy had none, we really cannot say. The context does not provide enough information, unlike what we see in the original sentence above. That is why your sample sentence would not be a GMAT™ question (that tested the exact point about which you are asking).
imSKR wrote:
Quote:
(E) The life of Chekhov, unlike that of other Troyat biographies of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoi, and Dostoevski, belongs
Question4: I choose this as an correct answer because life of C, unlike life of P, life of G , life of T and Life of D , belongs ( singular, unlike singular)
What If in some question , the structure is
Unlike X of Y, XX of YY,XX1 of YY1 and XX2 of YY2, belongs – this construction should be ok? Your comments please.
Here again, we see a dissimilar comparison between the life of a
person and the life of
biographies. We need not examine it any further. The GMAT™ is downright draconian when it comes to comparing like entities. Instead of focusing on smaller points such a singular-plural comparison, you would be better served looking for a proper noun-to-noun comparison. Hypothetically speaking, your sentence with all the X's and Y's could work, but we would need to see it on the screen along with four other options before I could offer a full analysis.
I hope that helps. Thank you for thinking to ask me about this one.
- Andrew
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